The Word
by Twinings
Summary: Have you heard the word is lurve?  No, that's not the moral of the story.  Passing messages, that's what this is about.  [CAT]
1. Chapter 1

_Disclaimer: I own none of the characters with speaking roles. Yaaaaaay! I mean...not yay. Maybe a little yay._

_This is a CATfic (www. freewebs. com/ catverse) taking place shortly after "When You Got a Good Friend."_

_Special note to all my readers: I lurve you.

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The Word

"I am not your message boy, Bruce!"

Batman glared. Nightwing sighed.

"Batman," he amended. Never use real names in costume, even in the safety of the cave where there are no outsiders to overhear. Never, _ever_ take the stick out. "If you have something to say to someone, say it yourself. I don't work for you."

"That's why you're the one who has to do it," Batman rumbled. "It's well known that you and I don't work as a team. Do you really think they'd trust a message from _me_?"

"So send Catwoman. She's one of them."

"Catwoman..." He settled for an eloquent Bat-glare.

"Won't follow your orders," Nightwing finished. "Jesus, Bruce. Just give me the message."

Batman nodded, ignoring the second breach of protocol in regard to his name.

"Take Robin with you. But _not_ inside the Iceberg."

"Robin can handle a solo patrol," Nightwing argued. "He's been doing this long enough. He doesn't need to follow me."

"He needs the training."

"You mean _I_ need the backup." He turned away in disgust. "Why do you ask me to do these things if you aren't going to trust me?"

"If you don't like it, go back to Bludhaven."


	2. Chapter 2

"What do you mean, they can't hold him?" Robin asked, outraged. Nightwing knew he should warn the kid to keep his voice down, but he couldn't help agreeing with the sentiment.

"He hasn't technically done anything wrong."

"Hasn't done anything wrong? In what reality?" Nightwing grinned. Say what you would about Bruce, but he wouldn't squelch a sidekick's sense of humor.

"Nothing we can get him for," he clarified.

"But we _know_," Robin protested. Nightwing shrugged.

"Due process, kid. It's important. Sucks, but that's the way it is. If we don't pay attention to that kind of thing, we're no better than they are."

"I guess," Robin said grudgingly. Nightwing got the feeling he'd had the same conversation on similar rooftops many times before. He decided to continue where Batman inevitably went silent.

"Besides, if we can track him to his home, we'll be able to find something and make it stick."

"Stakeouts," Robin groaned.

"Yeah…I know." He stood up. The "VIP" section of the 'Berg wasn't likely to get any busier that night. "I'm going in. If anything happens, _don't_ go rushing in after me. Call for backup."

"I _know_, jeez," Robin grumbled. "Thought I _was_ the backup."

"Hey, your job sucks, but somebody's got to do it. If there's something I can't handle on my own, chances are you can't, either. Not that anything's likely to happen, but just in case, I'm glad to have you watching my back."

Robin brightened, and Nightwing spared just a moment to be pissed off at Bruce for never bothering to say that kind of thing.

Then he went to work.

--

The hostess and bouncers were distinctly hostile to the man in the wrong kind of mask, but Nightwing blustered his way through. He would never be welcome among their kind, but they wouldn't attack him on sight the way they would Batman or anyone known to be part of his team. There were some benefits, after all, to their highly visible family feud of the past few years.

The buzz of conversation died down a bit when Nightwing made his quiet entrance. A few of the looks he was getting went beyond merely hostile. It looked like Firefly was still mad about the human shield thing. Two-Face was fingering his coin in a familiarly threatening manner. And…what was Lobo doing sharing a table with Harley and the Joker?

Nightwing grinned as nonchalantly as he could and announced, "Message for Lydia Crane."

A few heads shot up, and there were whispers speculating about the possibility of a Scarecrow's sister. Most notably, the Joker leaped to his feet, dumping Harley off his lap and onto the floor.

"They got _married_?"

Seeing a blur of green out of the corner of his eye, Nightwing barely sidestepped in time to avoid being bowled over by the Riddler, who grabbed his arm and dragged him out into the main hall, out of earshot of the rest of the villains.

"Are you insane? He's going to _kill_ her now!"

"Oh…my mistake."

"Your mistake," the Riddler muttered. "For crying out loud…He already tried to drown her in a vat of champagne when she wouldn't fall in love with him. Doesn't Batman make you do your homework anymore?"

"Bat—" He sighed. "Are you a friend of hers?"

Instead of some clever quip, the Riddler answered, "Yes."

"Then tell her she's wanted at Arkham. It's time to pick up her husband." He took a peek back inside the VIP lounge just in time to see the space biker taking exactly the kind of liberties he, as Robin, had occasionally thought about taking with Harley Quinn. And she responded exactly the way Batman had predicted she would to a pinch on the ass, with a squeak and a vicious right hook that sent him crashing into the Mad Hatter's booth, spilling tea all over a vacant-eyed blonde who barely reacted.

Delighted, the Joker gathered his harlequin up in his arms and laid a (somewhat awkward-looking) kiss on her lips. Nightwing turned away.

"I don't think Lydia has anything to worry about."

The Riddler glared at him.

"Idiot," he said. "Her name is Techie."


	3. Chapter 3

"Dude!" Robin's grin was so wide, it bordered on disturbing. "She sucker-punched the main man?"

"He would have seen it coming if he'd been looking at her face." He was stealing Barbara's lines; she'd given him hell that time he'd fallen under Poison Ivy's thrall, and in spite of her low expectations, some of it had actually sunk in. Besides, if Batman heard Robin speaking of Lobo in even borderline admiring terms…it wouldn't be pretty.

"But Batman _knew_!"

"He's the world's greatest detective," Nightwing said solemnly. Then he had to grin. "He never tried anything when _I_ was watching. And believe me, I was always watching."

They were bonding. Sharing a moment. Becoming a team. It was a shame Batman couldn't do that with his partners. Instead of allowing himself to crack a smile, he would have responded with a glare and a stern lecture featuring relentless use of the word "inappropriate." Batman would never admit that he noticed Harley's butt or Poison Ivy's legs or Catwoman's breasts, even though everyone knew what he thought of those.

It was nice working with a human being for once. Even Batgirl didn't really count. He couldn't talk to her about these kinds of things. It was almost impossible to take down one voluptuous redhead when you already had a second one kicking you in the knee and pointing a bat-shaped taser at your favorite highly conductive body parts.

He squirmed a little and stood up.

"I need to get back to Bludhaven. You can handle surveillance yourself, can't you?"

Robin was still at that stage in his career where a pout and a gagging noise seemed like an appropriate response.

"I know. Dull as dirt. But it has to be done."

"I guess," Robin sighed. "At least I'll have time to write the full report. Bruce should be happy."

"Batman," Nightwing corrected automatically.

"Right. Batman." The kid looked so down. Nightwing reached over to ruffle his hair.

"I'll be back tomorrow night. Think B-man would mind letting us keep this case?" Robin brightened.

"Both of us?"

"Sure. He wouldn't want to send you in without backup, and he doesn't like me running around 'his' city unsupervised, but I bet he wouldn't have a problem with the two of us together. And maybe he won't insult me by assuming I can't see Batgirl a consistent two buildings behind me." Surprised, Robin turned to scan the rooftops. Nightwing laughed. "Not now. You're my babysitter tonight."

This new Robin was a good kid. The four years he had spent with Batman had given him an impressive set of skills, and he hadn't broken under the training. He might not be a normal fifteen-year-old, but he was closer to it than the first Robin had been. He was all right.

And he had the makings of a great partner.


	4. Chapter 4

"'Wing! 'Wing, guess what!"

Nightwing stared at the kid, utterly confused by the enthusiastic greeting. The best he usually got when he entered the Batcave was a brooding silence or maybe a dignified, "Good evening, Master Dick," if Alfred was around. He'd never had anyone _bounce_ at him before.

"What's up?"

"Batman said we can keep the case. He's going after Catwoman tonight."

"Oh, great." He couldn't help rolling his eyes. Batman was _always_ running off to chase Catwoman's tail without supervision. If he would just admit it, he might actually come off as a human being every once in a while. But nothing like _that_ was ever going to happen.

"Do you think we'll get any action tonight?" Robin asked eagerly.

"Maybe. I don't know. You have to fill me in first," he reminded him.

"Oh, right. You don't read the logs."

"I have a life," Nightwing agreed. He took a seat on his old motorcycle (the name of which he shuddered to think of) and headed for the outside world, Robin following on his own bike.

(Put the word "bat" with any of their specialized gear, and it sounded great. Batmobile, Batcycle, Batcomputer--none of them laughable in any way. "Bird" was another story. The life of a sidekick could be so cruel.)

"Can you hear me?" Robin asked over the radio link in their helmets. Nightwing flashed him a thumbs up. "I followed the Riddler home last night. I mean, not home. But I followed them to the Scarecrow's gang. I put a tracker on their car. Batgirl's been keeping an eye on it all day." The Birdcycle zoomed ahead, leading the way to the not-so-secret lair.

"Good job," Nightwing said, and meant it.

--

The lair was in a nice, defensible position, with no overhanging rooftops from which Robin and Nightwing could watch. Still, they had a little stroke of luck. They'd left the curtains open and the lights on, and thus were clearly visible to casual passersby.

They were asleep, cuddled up like puppies on a love seat with the light of the TV playing over their sleeping faces. The two on the outside had their arms around the one in the middle, heads pillowed on their shoulders; all three looked like they had been crying. There were three bowls and a gallon of ice cream on the table in front of them.

"They haven't gone out at all today, have they?" Robin didn't answer. "Kid?" he prodded.

"Nightwing, I…" Robin gulped. "I didn't want to say anything, but…I know them. From before I was Robin."

"You know them?" Nightwing repeated. That changed everything. It made simple surveillance a potential catastrophe.

"The one in the middle…she bought me ice cream."

"Have you told Batman?"

"No! He'd call it a conflict of interest, and it isn't. I'm not going to stop doing my job just because one of my enemies was nice to me once. It's just…I thought maybe you should know." He looked guilty, with a hint of defiance kept under reign but still clearly visible. He wasn't going to hurt his friend any more than Bruce would break Selina's arm if he caught her with a juicy canary diamond, but just like Batman, he wasn't going to forget why he was there.

And Batman wouldn't be able to understand that.

"I won't say a word," Nightwing said reluctantly. "Just be careful. Old friends make the worst enemies." It would probably be best to minimize any potential trouble by getting the kid out of the way. "Listen, there's no reason for both of us to sit here all night, waiting for something to move. Why don't you swing out by Arkham, make sure the Scarecrow is still where he's supposed to be. They shouldn't have released him to anyone but his wife, but you can never be too sure. Besides, it can't hurt to have one more patrol tonight, with Batgirl sleeping and Batman trying to fool everyone into thinking he's not distracted."

Robin grinned. Maybe he still knew he was being gotten rid of, but at least he was being a good sport about it. He probably appreciated being sent away with a little more than a curt dismissal and a glare.

With the kid gone, Nightwing spent a few minutes prowling around the building in search of anything interesting. He could have gotten inside with a little effort, but he didn't want to risk letting them know he'd been there. He didn't see much else worth dealing with, except their car, a beat-up blue and white VW bus that didn't look like it would make it three feet out of its parking space. He found Robin's tracker, but only after some careful searching. The girls weren't going to stumble across it unless they had some reason to be suspicious.

There wasn't much else to do. He was beginning to think about going for a sandwich when Robin's voice came in over the radio.

"Uh, Nightwing?"

"Go ahead, Robin."

"I'm at Arkham. It's on fire."

He frowned.

"Arkham can't be on fire, Robin. It's a stone building."

"Um…not anymore."


End file.
